(08-12-2013 02:07 PM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote: Thanks for finding and sharing this! Never really thought much of kid's doodles, but goodness kids are kids no matter the age or time they lived.

Interesting connection to the past we so often neglect.

Thanks. I can't take credit for the find, though. I learned about it via the BioAnthropology News group on Facebook. They always post interesting stuff. I highly suggest people follow them for other neat tidbits like this.

(08-12-2013 02:07 PM)Momsurroundedbyboys Wrote: Thanks for finding and sharing this! Never really thought much of kid's doodles, but goodness kids are kids no matter the age or time they lived.

Interesting connection to the past we so often neglect.

Thanks. I can't take credit for the find, though. I learned about it via the BioAnthropology News group on Facebook. They always post interesting stuff. I highly suggest people follow them for other neat tidbits like this.

Thanks for the info...

Still totally awesome tho.

But as if to knock me down, reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch, cut me into little pieces

Quote:Onfim was being taught to write, but he was obviously restless with his lessons and when he could get away with it, he intermixed his assignments with doodlings. In this first example, he started to write out the first eleven letters of the alphabet in the upper right corner, but got bored and drew a picture of himself as a grown-up warrior impaling an enemy with his spear. To remove any doubt about the identity of the warrior, he even labeled the person on the horse as "Onfim."

Quote:Fantasies of becoming a mighty warrior were not the only things that Onfim thought up though. In another example, he took the piece of bark that he was practicing on (left), turned it over (right), and drew a picture of himself disguised as a wild beast (which he identified by writing "I am a wild beast" [Ia zver'] over it). The beast, with its long tongue (or fiery breath), is apparently still a friendly beast as it is carrying a sign that reads "Greetings from Onfim to Danilo" [Poklon ot Onfima ko Danile]. Danilo (i.e., Daniel) was probably a friend, perhaps even a schoolmate sitting next to Onfim.

A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels. ~ Albert Einstein

Has this been officially authenticated? I ask because I find this very dificult to believe. Books in that era were very, very rare. Rarer still were literate people. The skills of reading and writing were basically limited to the clergy and nobility. Common people did not know how to read or write and the idea of a child having access to something as valuable as a book, much less being able to deface it with doodles, seems extremely dubious to me.

Shackle their minds when they're bent on the cross
When ignorance reigns, life is lost

(09-12-2013 07:31 AM)BnW Wrote: Has this been officially authenticated? I ask because I find this very dificult to believe. Books in that era were very, very rare. Rarer still were literate people. The skills of reading and writing were basically limited to the clergy and nobility. Common people did not know how to read or write and the idea of a child having access to something as valuable as a book, much less being able to deface it with doodles, seems extremely dubious to me.

the article says they were on birch bark.

from the article:

Quote:
Here’s something very special. In the 1950s archeologists made a great discovery near the city of Novgorod, Russia: they dug up hundreds of pieces of birch bark with all sorts of texts written on them. The 915 items are mostly letters, notes and receipts, all written between the 11th and 15th century. Among the more notable scraps is a marriage proposal from a man called Mikita to his beloved Anna: “marry me - I want you and you want me, and the witness to that is Ignat Moiseev” (item 377).

The most special items, however, are the ones shown above, which are from a medieval classroom. In the 13th century, young schoolboys learning to write filled these scraps with alphabets and short texts. Bark was ideal material for writing down things with such a short half-life. Then the pupils got bored and started to doodle, as kids do: crude drawings of individuals with big hands, as well as a figure with a raised sword standing next to a defeated beast (lower image). The last one was drawn by Onfim, who put his name next to the victorious warrior. The snippets provide a delightful and most unusual peek into a 13th-century classroom, with kids learning to read - and getting bored in the process.

More information - On the scraps in general, see here. Here is a full inventory, in Russian. On the excavation, see here and here. More kids’ doodles here and here. Some letters in this Flickr stream. The Leiden scholar Jos Schaeken published a book in Dutch on this material, which can be downloaded for free here (English translation to follow next year).

I don't know, maybe it's legit. I'd like to think it is. I love that kind of stuff. I once did the tour of the Roman baths in Bath, England. People used to write things on coins (the Romans were fairly literate) and throw them into the fountains in the hopes their wishes would come true. They translated some of those and you could read what people asked for. I was pleased to learn that people were as petty then as they are today.

Shackle their minds when they're bent on the cross
When ignorance reigns, life is lost